What the hell is libertarianism?

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Some more questions... what are libertarian takes on:

1. the rights and responsibilities of parents towards their children

2. the rights of children

3. the rights of physically and/or mentally disabled persons (apart from anecdotes about eg. this one handicapped guy who wrote books about computers :p)

4. establishing and maintaining a military force

5. the mission of that military force

??

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Since I'm procrastinating, I figured I'd answer those (no, I'm not a libertarian).

1.Most libertarians accept that children aren't mentally developed enough to take care of themselves. Therefore, parents are meant to act in their children's best interests. A libertarian would resist having the government tell them how to bring up their child as long as they provide it with the necessities though.

2. See point 1.

3. Probably in same category as children.

4. Most libertarians support a minimal military force.

5. The goal of that military force is to repel foreign invasions, not anything more.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Since I'm procrastinating, I figured I'd answer those (no, I'm not a libertarian).

1.Most libertarians accept that children aren't mentally developed enough to take care of themselves. Therefore, parents are meant to act in their children's best interests. A libertarian would resist having the government tell them how to bring up their child as long as they provide it with the necessities though.

2. See point 1.

3. Probably in same category as children.

4. Most libertarians support a minimal military force.

5. The goal of that military force is to repel foreign invasions, not anything more.

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Remembering that like any other political philosophy, there are different viewpoints amongst the individual Libertarians. (Yes I am one)

Loki hits it pretty well on 1, 2, and 3. (and I think most people regardless of political affiliation agree on those)

Points 4 and 5 are some of the many points where libertarians disagree with each other.

There are plenty of classical liberals who don't support 4 and 5, but I don't think I've seen any hardcore libertarians who did not. The likes of Cato and the Libertarian Party in the US certainly support those points.

Okay, so, in essence, Libertarians don't see the need to defend the rights of children who have the misfortune of being born to eg. fuckwits?

I'm not clear on who would be responsible for the disabled. I mean, not all disabled people are children, after all.

I think what I'm trying to figure out is what degree of libertarianism you can have in a functioning nation or in a functioning society.

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Originally Posted by Loki

There are plenty of classical liberals who don't support 4 and 5, but I don't think I've seen any hardcore libertarians who did not. The likes of Cato and the Libertarian Party in the US certainly support those points.

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Yes, because those two orgs speak for all of us.

The group is not big enough at this time to have enough mouthpieces for the subsets of the group.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Okay, so, in essence, Libertarians don't see the need to defend the rights of children who have the misfortune of being born to eg. fuckwits?

I'm not clear on who would be responsible for the disabled. I mean, not all disabled people are children, after all.

I think what I'm trying to figure out is what degree of libertarianism you can have in a functioning nation or in a functioning society.

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Define fuckwits a bit more precisely.

Eg. parents who either abuse or severely neglect their children.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Eg. parents who either abuse or severely neglect their children.

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Physical/Mental Abuse = assault. Against the law. (Hint: Libertarians are not anarchists, we do believe that the role of government is to protect us from harm from others, just not ourselves)

Severe neglect can = Physical Abuse = assault.

Jebus...stop trying to paint us a mindless slaves to an (your) extreme view of Libertarianism.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Eg. parents who either abuse or severely neglect their children.

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Did you read my response to point 1? :bored:

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Originally Posted by Loki

Did you read my response to point 1? :bored:

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This is why I tend not to get involved with these discussions. He has no intent of digesting what I or you would say on this as it does not fit his preconceptions of Libertarianism (THEY ARE JUST ULTRA-CONSERVATIVES!!!111!!)

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Originally Posted by Loki

Did you read my response to point 1? :bored:

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I missed the implication that someone else could intervene on the behalf of a child.

EDIT: Are libertarians okay with any degree of oversight over their parenting??

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Originally Posted by Veldan Rath

This is why I tend not to get involved with these discussions. He has no intent of digesting what I or you would say on this as it does not fit his preconceptions of Libertarianism (THEY ARE JUST ULTRA-CONSERVATIVES!!!111!!)

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Actually I was just wondering how it worked, because I've always just assumed Libertarians are very close to being anarchists but I don't know much about what they really believe about different issues. Wow, it's like it's illegal to be curious on this forum :confused: :down:

Maybe you tend to avoid these discussions because you're really bad at having discussions with other human beings :-D :-D that's an explanation that fits with my preconceptions of internet nerds anyway :up: or maybe we can just give each other the benefit of the doubt for once...??

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Actually I was just wondering how it worked, because I've always just assumed Libertarians are very close to being anarchists but I don't know much about what they really believe about different issues. Wow, it's like it's illegal to be curious on this forum :confused: :down:

Maybe you tend to avoid these discussions because you're really bad at having discussions with other human beings :-D :-D that's an explanation that fits with my preconceptions of internet nerds anyway :up: or maybe we can just give each other the benefit of the doubt for once...??

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Pardon me, but your curiosity smacked of obtuseness and a predetermined result/view, especially after it being pointed out multiple times on this forum and The Other Place, that we are not anywhere near anarchists.

If that is not the case, mea culpa. It just looked like you were asking for info, and then disregarding it so you could point to a pile of poo.

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Originally Posted by Veldan Rath

Pardon me, but your curiosity smacked of obtuseness

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eye of the beholder :downcast:

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and a predetermined result/view

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well duh I have preconceptions, but I posted this thread because I realised I didn't actually know much about libertarians! Furthermore, I didn't even know we had any self-identified libertarians here besides Cain. That's how little I knew about them :p

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especially after it being pointed out multiple times on this forum and The Other Place, that we are not anywhere near anarchists.

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I haven't been particularly involved in those discussions, alas.

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If that is not the case, mea culpa. It just looked like you were asking for info, and then disregarding it so you could point to a pile of poo.

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Look, I'm pretty sure libertarianism goes against my own beliefs and values and that I'll find plenty of things in libertarianism that bother me, but I am nevertheless interested in knowing what libertarians believe. I'm also interested in knowing what others more politically and philosophically savvy than myself believe about libertarianism. I'm just trying to make sense of things for myself, there's absolutely no reason for you to get so upset. It's not as if I'd gain anything of value from upsetting you, or from pointing at a pile of poo :confused:

okay i can see how my initial posts could have been perceived as being aggressive and accusatory, didn't think about that.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Okay, is it possible to have a functioning and productive society that includes both libertarians and non-libertarians??

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Yes, of course. Why wouldn't it be?

I was thinking that systems that eg. place a greater emphasis on social security would require a level of government involvement that would be unacceptable to libertarians. I was wondering whether or not it'd be possible to have a functioning and acceptable compromise.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Since I'm procrastinating, I figured I'd answer those (no, I'm not a libertarian).

1.Most libertarians accept that children aren't mentally developed enough to take care of themselves. Therefore, parents are meant to act in their children's best interests. A libertarian would resist having the government tell them how to bring up their child as long as they provide it with the necessities though.

2. See point 1.

3. Probably in same category as children.

4. Most libertarians support a minimal military force.

5. The goal of that military force is to repel foreign invasions, not anything more.

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1, 4, and 5 are certainly accurate, but in my experience, libertarians trend toward somewhat more expansive views of children's rights, like privacy, than other groups. This is countered somewhat by the biggest flaw of libertarian movements, most of the people are really thinking more about their own freedoms than anyone elses. So you've also got trends toward those who see their family as themselves, and object to things like child-abuse laws. Certainly they object to the idea of social services departments and monitoring or acting against unsafe environments. Most will accept some level of police-work, but the idea of other regulatory or enforcement agencies with similar powers is mostly anathema.

For the physically and mentally handicapped, they'd object to involuntary institutionalization, and would tend to regard them like they do everyone else.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

I was thinking that systems that eg. place a greater emphasis on social security would require a level of government involvement that would be unacceptable to libertarians. I was wondering whether or not it'd be possible to have a functioning and acceptable compromise.

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Uh, we're talking about democracy right? Everyone ends up unhappy with things at some point. You literally cannot have a society where everyone finds things acceptable.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

I was thinking that systems that eg. place a greater emphasis on social security would require a level of government involvement that would be unacceptable to libertarians. I was wondering whether or not it'd be possible to have a functioning and acceptable compromise.

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

Uh, we're talking about democracy right? Everyone ends up unhappy with things at some point. You literally cannot have a society where everyone finds things acceptable.

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Unless Amy's implying the US is not a functioning society, then I'm not sure what the point of the question is since here we have Libertarians and Liberals and Conservatives and everything else, all wrangling and fighting and cooperating and so on. We're not a failed state or sliding into totalitarianism, though to hear whatever opposition talk you might think we were....

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

Uh, we're talking about democracy right? Everyone ends up unhappy with things at some point. You literally cannot have a society where everyone finds things acceptable.

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No, of course not. But can you have a society wherein some people live as libertarians and others do not? Basically have two subgroups that play by different rules?

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Originally Posted by Aimless

No, of course not. But can you have a society wherein some people live as libertarians and others do not? Basically have two subgroups that play by different rules?

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Since we're talking about libertarians, which is a politcal ideology, so we're talking about politics, which is about governance and law, which applies to everyone then no, we can't have two political subgroups which play by different rules.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

No, of course not. But can you have a society wherein some people live as libertarians and others do not? Basically have two subgroups that play by different rules?

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Do you mean those living as Libertarians get to not pay taxes for most stuff in lieu of the benefits those taxes pay for? I'm not sure that's possible since many of the benefits the taxes buy are non-specific, like economic prosperity and general standard of living...

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

Do you mean those living as Libertarians get to not pay taxes for most stuff in lieu of the benefits those taxes pay for? I'm not sure that's possible since many of the benefits the taxes buy are non-specific, like economic prosperity and general standard of living...

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Well, yes and no, but to a certain limit you can have a mix of sorts...(wow, did that not sound like political double speak or what?)

With the multiple layers of local, county, state, and then federal government it is possible.

The first 3 could have a minimal government and then the fed is there.

The ideal (and will never happen) is that The Fed is the least intrusive (for the lack of a better term) and the more nitpicky governing bodies are get more intrusive as they get closer to the local level.

And...in some ways it does. Example: The Fed and State does not give a rats ass if I build a deck on my house, by the Town does.

Libertarians advocate deregulation, no taxes, open markets, which is the ideal situation for oligopolies and monopolies to get bigger and more powerful.
Ironically libertarians say they oppose monopolies.
So they say something, and they support measures to achieve the exact opposite.

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Originally Posted by ']['ear

Yes, actually. Something like that. You see, when Silver attacked Lolli with all kinds of ugly stuff, I stepped up and took a side. When Cain tried to get the kiddies to commit suicide, I called him on it. When people have said homophobic, racist, sexist whatever, I always step up and say "you've gone too far." That's what decent people do in a community.

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What people do in a crowd though, is gather round accidents, rubbernecking. All of your posts have been massive multi-car wrecks since that post by Cain.

How spastic do you have to be not to know that getting a reaction like the one you have given is pretty much him going fishing and landing a fish "THIS BIG"?

His post was much more shocking before you started shrieking about it in every fucking post and thread on this site. Now I wish him luck with his next riposte.

And honestly tear, i like you, i really do.

This bears repeating...

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Originally Posted by ar81

Libertarians advocate deregulation, no taxes, open markets, which is the ideal situation for oligopolies and monopolies to get bigger and more powerful.

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Tear, this is the internet. Don't take it seriously. I bet Cain spends his weekends volunteering at an orphanage.

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Originally Posted by Young Mage

Tear, this is the internet. Don't take it seriously. I bet Cain spends his weekends volunteering at an orphanage.

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You're on. How much?

AR81 bears repeating?

ya...sure:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

You're on. How much?

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FIIIINE, I'll be more realistic; I bet Cain spends his weekdays tending blind puppies and helping the autistics.